Laura Hale
Laura Hale was a born Werewolf and minor character introduced in Season 1 of Teen Wolf. She is the eldest daughter of the powerful Alpha Talia Hale, the sister of Derek and Cora Hale, and the niece of Peter Hale, which also makes her the paternal cousin of the Werecoyote Malia Tate. After the majority of her family were killed in the Hale House Fire, Laura inherited her mother's powers and became the Alpha of what remained of their pack. She and Derek then went on the run from the Argent Family of Werewolf Hunters, who they believed to be responsible for the fire, eventually settling down in New York. Six years after the fire, Laura returned to her hometown of Beacon Hills, California in order to investigate a dead deer with a spiral carved into its body, a sign for revenge in werewolf culture, which Laura took to be a message to her family. Shortly after her return, she was killed by her uncle Peter, who had recently come out of his coma and who was eager to steal her Alpha spark and become an Alpha himself, healing what remained of his burns with his augmented power and allowing him to begin to build a new pack with which to enact his revenge against those who were involved with setting the fire. Though her time on-screen was limited, Laura's death and its subsequent consequences became the basis for the entire series -- her absence led her brother Derek to return to Beacon Hills as well to check on her, it was her Alpha spark that made Peter an Alpha, and it was news that her body was found in the woods that led Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski to go out and search for it, allowing Peter to bite and turn Scott into his first Beta and pulling him into the supernatural side of Beacon Hills. Laura was a member of the Hale Family and a former Alpha to the Hale Pack. Early Life Very little is known about Laura's early life, aside from the fact that she was Talia Hale's eldest child and, like her mother and younger siblings, was born a Werewolf. It has been implied in flashbacks that Laura was being trained by her mother to eventually succeed her as Alpha to the Hale Pack, as she was seen accompanying her mother to a Werewolf summit with other Alphas (including Deucalion, Kali, and Ennis) when she was still a Beta in the early 2000s. ( ) At some point in near the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005, a skilled Argent Hunter, Kate Argent, along with a number of co-conspirators, set fire to the Hale House while Laura and her brother Derek were at school, decimating the Hale Family. Peter was so badly burned in the fire that he went into a coma, and his sister Talia was killed, as were nearly a dozen other family members, both Werewolf and human alike. ( ) Also believed to be dead was Laura's youngest sister, Cora, but in reality, she was able to escape and went on the run. ( ) After the fire, Laura became an Alpha, possibly because she was set to inherit Talia's power, and she and Derek left Beacon Hills to get away from the Hunters, leaving Peter in a long-term care facility to heal from his wounds. Laura and Derek eventually ended up in New York, where they stayed for nearly six years until Laura received word of a deer found in Beacon Hills that had a spiral carved into it, which is a symbol of revenge in Werewolf culture. ( ), ( ) Laura then left Derek behind in New York while she returned to her hometown to investigate the message, where she was eventually attacked in the woods by Peter, who had awakened from his six year long coma but was still recovering from his burns through the days leading up to the full moon. Whether Peter purposely killed Laura to steal her Alpha power or simply lost control due to the years he spent in a coma remains officially unknown (though, but she was still killed by him nonetheless, and the Alpha powers he stole from her ultimately allowed him to finish healing his wounds. ( ), ( ) Shortly afterward, her body was found by Argent Hunters, who cut her body in half and used as bait to catch Derek. Derek then arrived to Beacon Hills to look for her a few days later, as he had become worried about her lack of communication, which is when he found her body. Throughout Teen Wolf Season 1 In Wolf Moon, Stiles Stilinski heard news that half of the body of a murdered woman had been found in the woods on his father's police radio and decided to go find it with his best friend Scott McCall. Though Stiles was ultimately caught by his father, the Sheriff of Beacon County, before he could find anything, Scott ended up stumbling upon the upper half of Laura Hale's body under a pile of leaves when he was trying to locate the inhaler he dropped on the ground. However, before he could investigate it further, Scott was attacked and bitten by an Alpha Werewolf. While the upper half of the body would not be found and moved by Derek Hale until later, the lower half was found by police and brought to the morgue at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. In Second Chance at First Line, when Scott was at the Hale House, he caught a scent that was just like the body he found at the woods, and when he and Stiles noticed a freshly-dug patch of dirt on the Hale property, they decided to go back after Derek left to see if he had buried the body there. When Scott and Stiles dug up the grave, they were surprised to find not the upper half of Laura's body (though the identity of the body was still unknown at this time), but the upper half of a dead black wolf that was wrapped in a canvas tarp. Stiles then noticed that a plant with a purple flower (which Stiles identified as a strain of Wolfsbane) had been planted near the grave and was tied to a long rope of twine in a spiral around the body, which caused him to unravel the spiral. Once unraveled, the wolf corpse turned back into the upper half of Laura's body. As a result, Scott and Stiles called the police, and Sheriff Stilinski arrested Derek for Laura's murder. However, once an autopsy was performed on Laura's body, they determined that Derek couldn't have been the killer because the bite marks and hairs found on her body indicated that she was killed by a wolf, forcing them to release him from jail. The coroner also identified the body as belonging to Laura Hale, making her Derek's sister. In Pack Mentality, after Garrison Myers died following being attacked by a werewolf, Scott, believing Derek to be his killer, also accused Derek of killing Laura as well. In response, Derek angrily revealed that he came back to Beacon Hills to find Laura already dead, and that Hunters cut her in half and killed her to use her as bait to get to him. He went on to explain that while both he and Scott were Beta werewolves, Laura was an Alpha, and that the werewolf who bit Scott was one as well, which is why they needed to find him. In The Tell, Kate Argent, who had just arrived in town days earlier, confronted Derek at the Hale House with several of her Hunter associates. She revealed that while the Argent Family did cut Laura's body in half, they weren't the ones who killed her, and that the Alpha who was terrorizing Beacon Hills likely killed her to steal her Alpha powers. In Wolf's Bane, it was revealed that Peter Hale was the Alpha, and that he had killed Laura to take her powers. However, in Co-Captain, Peter told Derek that he didn't have control over himself when he killed her, citing the fact that he had just come out of his coma and didn't have control over his transformations as a result of not shifting on the full moons in several years. Despite this claim, it was revealed in Code Breaker that Peter, with help from his nurse, Jennifer, was the one to lure Laura back to Beacon Hills by burning the spiral in the fur of the dead deer as a message, and that his intention was to kill her and take her Alpha powers to finish healing himself. Season 2 In Fury, Derek was helped up to his feet by Alan Deaton after his blood and power was used in the resurrection ritual that brought Peter back from the dead in the previous episode. Once Derek was conscious, Deaton told him that he was helping him because of a promise he made to Talia years earlier to protect her children. Derek then mentioned that Laura had spoken of Deaton before as a kind of adviser to the Hale Family, which suggested she was one of the few people in the Hale Pack to know that Deaton was their Emissary. Season 3 In Frayed, Peter Hale arrived at the abandoned mall where the Hale Pack had fought against the Alpha Pack the day before and found Cora looking at the location where Derek had fallen, hoping to find clues to indicate whether or not he had survived his injuries. When Peter's arrival startled Cora, he tried to reassure her by saying, "It's just me, your uncle. Your uncle Peter," causing Cora to scoff and retort, "Uncle Peter who killed sister Laura." Though Peter didn't deny killing Laura, he did point out that since Derek had also killed him, he was hardly the only "dysfunctional family member." In the flashbacks in Visionary, Laura was seen in the distillery acting as the second-in-command to her mother, Talia, while the Hale Pack met with with Deucalion, Ennis, Kali and their respective original packs. As they discussed the current situation, Ennis explained in detail how the Argent Hunters had tortured his Beta by removing his claws and shooting him in the neck with an arrow before cutting him in half. When Kali questioned why any of them should be concerned with the death of a Beta in another pack, Laura spoke up and reminded them that the Argents' indiscriminate attitude toward werewolves put them all at risk. They were in the middle of discussing how they would proceed when a loud wolf howl was heard to announce the arrival of Talia, who was in her full black wolf form. When Talia transformed back into her human form, Laura picked up a robe and wrapped it around her mother's body before they continued their debate. Personality Not much of Laura's personality has been shown in the series thus far, but from her brief appearances, Laura seemed to be very similar to her mother, Talia, due to her natural leadership abilities and her tendency to speak her mind, even to those who are stronger or of a higher rank. This was evidenced during the werewolf summit in the flashbacks in Visionary, when she stood up to Kali by defending Ennis. She was also implied to be very intelligent, as she understood how the Argent Family of Hunters worked from a young age and was keen to investigate the news of a spiral burned into the fur of a deer in her hometown of Beacon Hills, an investigation that ultimately cost her her life. Physical Appearance Laura was a beautiful young woman with long, light brown hair and hazel eyes. She shown to be relatively tall with a slim, fit figure, and dressed in a casual, yet utilitarian style that consisted of jeans, boots, t-shirts, and jackets. Powers and Abilities Laura was an Evolved Alpha Werewolf, which has been implied to make her even more powerful than most Alpha werewolves. An "Evolved werewolf" is one who has the rare ability to shapeshift into a true wolf, an ability that seems to be unique to the Hale Family as far as real werewolves are concerned. Werewolves with this ability, such as Talia, Laura, and Derek, are very respected in the werewolf community due to having to find the balance between human and wolf. Though Laura's powers as an Evolved Alpha werewolf have yet to be shown on-screen, it can be assumed that she was exceptionally powerful, as her brother Derek was able to kill a Berserker with his bare hands just as an Evolved Beta, indicating that Laura would be capable of performing such feats and more. Weaknesses Laura possessed the standard weaknesses of all Werewolves, including a vulnerability to wolfsbane, which could weaken or kill her depending on the dosage and species used, and electricity, which could do as little as prevent her from accessing her powers to stopping her heart and killing her outright. Though Laura was a born Werewolf who had plenty of experience and control over her lycanthropy, she could still be adversely affected by full moons (including supermoons) and heightened emotions, which can make any Werewolf lose control under the right conditions. Additionally, like all werecreatures, Laura would lose her powers during the peak of a lunar eclipse when the moon was hidden by the earth's umbral shadow. Like all supernatural creatures, Laura was adversely affected by Mountain Ash, which could be used to either trap her or keep her out of a given area if it was arranged in an unbroken circle around a certain area. Etymology *'Laura': Laura is a feminine form of the Late Latin name Laurus, which means "laurel." This was an especially favored name in the Ancient Roman era, as the Romans used the leaves of laurel trees to create victors' garlands, which ultimately led the name Laurus to mean "victor" as well. As an English name, Laura has been in use since the 13th century. Variants of the name in other languages include: Llora (Catalan); Laurie (Dutch); Lora (English, Italian); Lauren, Loreen, Lorene, Loretta, Lorinda, Laurinda, Laurissa, Lori (English); Laure, Laurette, Laurine, Lorette (French); Lára (Icelandic); Lavra (Slovene); Lowri (Welsh). *'Hale': Derived from a geographical locality, "at the hale," i.e. "hall" (either as a proprietor or servant at a residence there). It is also derived from the Old English healh, meaning "nook" or "hollow." In northern England, the name often has a specialized meaning, either denoting a piece of flat alluvial land by the side of a river, or as a patch of dry land in a fen. It is also sometimes a habitational name from any of the several places in England that shares the same name. Additionally, it could also have origins as a Middle English personal name derived from either of two Old English bynames, Haele ("hero"), or Haegel, which is akin to the Germanic Hagano meaning "hawthorn." The name Hale was first recorded as De Halys in 1130. It is said that the Hales were related to Saint Edmund, the King of East Anglia, which is how the family's coat of arms got their arrows pointing downward. Trivia *Though she was actually killed by her uncle, Peter Hale, her body was found by the Argent Hunter family and cut in half to lure her younger brother Derek Hale back to Beacon Hills. *Even though she is a minor character, Laura has played a significant role in the main story of the series, since Scott McCall was bitten and turned into a Werewolf by Peter Hale (who could not have turned him without Laura's Alpha powers) while he was in the Beacon Hills Preserve looking for her body. *Like her mother, Talia Hale, and younger brother, Derek Hale, Laura is an Evolved Werewolf. The Hales are currently the only Werewolf bloodline shown to have acquired this ability, though it is not exclusive to this bloodline. *Laura made most of her on-screen appearances through archive footage. Gallery Laura_hale_visionary.png Laura_Hale_-.png Teen_Wolf_Wolf_Moon_Laura_Hale_tpng.png 1x01_Laura_Hale_wolf_form.png Category:Female Characters Category:Minor Characters Category:Werewolves Category:Alphas Category:Supernatural Creatures Category:Deceased Characters Category:Hale Family Category:Hale Pack Category:Characters Category:Season 1 Characters Category:Evolved Werewolves Category:Season 3 Characters Category:Shapeshifters